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what does the american dream mean to you
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doctor i tell you
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to me it means
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being able to touch a life
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being able to
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wake up every day and knowing that i
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have
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an ability and a sort of an opportunity
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to help someone
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[Music]
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dr q neurosurgeon
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in front of the mayo clinic in
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jacksonville what an honor it is dr q as
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everyone refers to you as to be able to
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have an opportunity to to chat with you
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jose the honor is my dr q you have a
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life story that
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really distills the american dream and
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what it means
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to be able to achieve your dreams in
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such a
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extraordinary way i mean doctor
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let's talk about your upbringing
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you know
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it was humble it was very humble
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beginnings in my life
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i grew up in a small little town
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outside of mexicali mexico mexicali is
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in the state of baja california
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extraordinarily hot in the summer time
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really no running water no electricity
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you know what we had jose was an amazing
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ability to dream
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how do you go from that to dream big
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dreams what were you basing those dreams
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on
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right here writing your brain in my
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brain 100 billion neurons
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firing all the time
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making about
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160 trillion synapses right now as we're
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talking there are more synapses ongoing
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in your brain then there are stars in
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the galaxy so we're all
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you know born with this extraordinary
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ability to dream
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you know when i grew up in mexico
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very poor we never had access to health
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care my little sister died and when i
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was just three years old i had to
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remember she died of diarrhea
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dehydration then i came to the united
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states and i saw what it was like to
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work in the fields you know the same
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field that says our child would work on
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you know 30 40 years prior and try to
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change it and i saw how invisible one
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human being can be to the rest of the
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world i saw how my parents by the way
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who are very humble who live now here in
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the united states how they sometimes
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have been treated by some healthcare
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providers and i always told myself
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if i am blessed one day as a leader as a
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physician as a surgeon you know all my
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patients are going to be treated the way
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that i would like my loved ones to be
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treated and that's it it's that simple
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and then when you're 19
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you take this step which is the step
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that
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so many people have taken
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over the
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generations a dangerous
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uncertain step
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of
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crossing into the united states you had
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no documents
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you only had a dream
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and you actually
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climbed that fence like
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spider-man
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to get over and get into the united
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states and you were stopped when you
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first got here
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my uncle my mom's brother the very first
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bracero who at age 17 he left mexico at
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age 17 to
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you know build the future she was truly
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an inspiration for me when we were going
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through those difficult times in in
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mexico i mean i uh he used to come from
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the united states and bring us a sack of
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potatoes beans things like that by
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1986-87
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you know the only way to come across was
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an undocumented migrant farm worker and
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i had a dream that one day somewhere
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along this journey i was going to be
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able to do something meaningful on
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behalf of humanity and i ended up
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crossing and hopping that fence in that
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journey in which so many people continue
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to die even today you were sent back to
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mexico but that didn't dissuade you no
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this is this is what cesar chavez said
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once the ability to be successful is two
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things
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an extraordinary resilience and number
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two the extraordinary capacity to dream
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and dream big dr q
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because you know you
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quite frankly you didn't have the
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background to really dream of one day
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being a neurosurgeon
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in those jobs that you took
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you start
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developing
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a road
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map for what your life could be like
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who could have thought that the things
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that i did when i first came to the
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united states the simple job
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of picking tomatoes i started picking
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with my hands i ended up over the course
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of about a year to becoming one of the
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specialized drivers of these
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extraordinarily complex tomato peakers
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and you would sit in the middle and you
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had a
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number of commands and you would have a
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crew that was really
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in a very dangerous way because there
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were all kinds of blades spanish in this
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machinery and i was managing this and
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had a crew working in these tomato
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peekers you know and now
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presently the way i sit in the operating
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room and you've seen it probably in
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television most originally through this
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series i came out and netflix you see me
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in my microscope sitting with my mouth
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you know connected to the microscope
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connected to the patient manipulating
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everything through my hands and my feet
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and doing surgery so some of those early
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skills mechanical skills as well as the
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perseverance of not giving up of knowing
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that no matter how challenging the job
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may be
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there is someone who will benefit from
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what you're doing today in my case today
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is of course the surgery that i do on
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behalf of my patients back then i knew
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that my job mattered that what i was
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doing as a migrant farm worker was
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putting food on the table of people
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in the world
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how do you go
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from piscar tomates
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to graduating from harvard
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and then
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being able to save lives
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by
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uh
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almost
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having
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an impact on the human brain what was
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your moment the first thing that
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happened to me is when i was in
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community college
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realizing that no one in my family had
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ever gone to school at university even
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community college and i realized that as
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beautiful as this country is in as much
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of a land of opportunity can be hard and
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sometimes it can bring you down on your
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knees and there are sometimes you're
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just going to stay down on your knees
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and never going to be able to get up and
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i was not willing to take that fight on
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my knees i needed to stand up again and
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come back after that april 14 1989 i
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ended up going to community college not
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really knowing i
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found myself going to uc berkeley
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struggling to make ends meet but somehow
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you know by another mentor who one day
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tells me with the grades that you have
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the things that you have done you can go
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to harvard and there was something a
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little light bulb almost do not but i
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said nah he's crazy so he ends up
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helping me and there we are a few years
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later when i was a second year harvard
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medical student when i was on my way to
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the library to study on a friday night
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and here is a very famous brain surgeon
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coming towards the operating room and
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i'm going through the hospital the
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brigham and women's hospital and he
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asked me have you ever seen brain
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surgery and i said no sir and he goes
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would you like to see brain surgery and
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i'm thinking he's going to invite me in
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the future and say yes i love to say
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let's do it that night because i end up
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in the operating room and i saw the
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brain going like this
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dancing with the heart from the side and
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i saw the patient awake and in one view
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i see the face and the brain going like
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this and the patient doing all kinds of
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functions and i had that moment wow
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humans can do this and you know what the
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most beautiful thing that i realized how
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can it be possible that that human
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is willing to put his or her life on the
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hands of someone else that to me was the
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epiphany that people can actually do
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that and can give you that gift
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he spent so much time on other things to
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help other people you founded mission
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brain
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so what is mission brain vision brain i
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think is an amazing not-for-profit
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organization in which we treat
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we educate and we empower those around
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the world to be able to care for some of
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the poorest people with some of the most
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complex
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extraordinarily dangerous brain
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disorders whether it's brain tumors
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vascular malformations spine tumors and
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we
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go around the world we've been in places
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like mexico peru ecuador haiti the
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philippines in which we provide care
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free care and we bring some of the top
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brain surgeons from the united states
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together we don't pay them a cent we
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just go there we work together and we
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partner with the local surgeons because
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at the end of the day we're there to
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share our knowledge and we do some of
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the most extraordinarily
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complex
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brain surgery what does the american
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dream mean to you doctor i tell you
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to me it means
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being able to touch a life
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being able to
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wake up every day and knowing that i
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have
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an ability and a sort of an opportunity
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to help someone
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it was interesting if you had asked me
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the american dream back in 1987
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i would have told you the american dream
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is to buy a pair of high-top nikes in a
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pair of ray bans
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but you see life takes us through an
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amazing journey now the american dream i
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get to
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wear nice clothes i get to you know
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travel around the world now it's that
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simple is do i have the ability to touch
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someone else's life that to me is what
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american dream means today
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